Dolphins Out of Pan as Ball Goes Into Fryar : Interconference: He catches touchdown pass with 11 seconds left as Miami keeps playoff hopes alive with 21-20 victory over Atlanta.

The worst week of Don Shula’s coaching career ended with a victory.

Irving Fryar juggled and then caught Dan Marino’s 21-yard touchdown pass with 11 seconds left, giving the Miami Dolphins and their beleaguered coach a 21-20 victory Sunday over the stunned Atlanta Falcons.

The Dolphins rallied from a 20-9 deficit with two touchdowns in the last eight minutes, and Marino drove them 72 yards in the final 1:49 for the winning score.

The desperate, dramatic victory ended a three-game losing streak for the Dolphins (7-6). It could also quiet critics who have argued that the 65-year-old Shula should quit because his team has failed to meet expectations.

“This past week has been the toughest I’ve spent in my coaching career,” Shula said. “Everything has been so negative, it’s been hard to stay focused.”

Miami, the preseason AFC favorite, narrowly avoided falling below .500 for the first time since 1991.

“It was a make-or-break game,” Fryar said. “Chances were that if we had lost, we would have been out of it. We were a little tight. In the back of our minds, we knew this was it.”

For Atlanta (7-6), the defeat left Coach June Jones second-guessing his decision to forgo a 45-yard field-goal attempt that could have clinched a victory with less than two minutes left. Instead, Bryan Cox stopped Craig Heyward for no gain on fourth and one.

“Sometimes you have to overcome the coaching too,” Jones said. “We just felt we could end the game. There are no guarantees. In hindsight, we probably should have kicked it. It was probably a bad decision, but I think you can get half a yard when you need it.”

The Falcons, seeking their first playoff berth since 1991, have lost two in a row for the first time this season.

The Dolphins’ winning drive started at their 28-yard line after they stopped Heyward’s fourth-down plunge. Marino completed four of seven passes, then hobbled for a 12-yard gain one play before the touchdown.

The game-winning pass hit Fryar in the hands at the goal line, but he bobbled it before cradling the ball as he fell in the end zone.

“Luckily I held onto it,” Fryar said. “It was wobbly. I was trying to make up my mind whether I was going to catch it with my chest or my hands. I tried to catch it with my hands.”

In the first half, Fryar slipped behind the secondary but dropped a potential 54-yard touchdown pass, and later missed an attempt at a diving catch in the end zone.

Miami closed to 20-15 with an 80-yard march capped by Bernie Parmalee’s three-yard touchdown run midway through the final quarter. Marino’s fourth-and-three completion to O.J. McDuffie set up the score.

Against a pass defense ranked last in the NFL, Marino completed 35 of 50 passes for 343 yards with two touchdowns. It was the 52nd 300-yard game of his career, breaking the league record he had shared with Dan Fouts.

Marino has rallied Miami from a fourth-quarter deficit 31 times, including twice this season.

“That man’s a walking Hall of Fame,” Falcon safety Kevin Ross said.